Please help us!
My father and I are in a very precarious and complicated situation.
Let me begin by saying we live in Portugal so none of the information gets confusing.
My father is disabled. He's deaf and currently recovering from a full knee replacement surgery (after 6 other failed surgeries).
I myself am chronically ill as well but I'm the only caretaker he has and also his secretary and translator for anything official due to his deafness.
My father has been on medical leave for over 3 years due to delays in his surgeries, as soon as the three years ended in July, we stopped getting his disability pension (local law, disability can't go over 3 years or they cut the pension) and his request for temporary aid from social security until he can work again might take months to be approved and during those months we have absolutely no income.
Meanwhile I'm also waiting for several doctor assessments and reports to get disability aid as well but thanks to new pandemic rules everything in that area has been delayed for months.
Add to that that the magazine I worked for closed down months ago and that I'm finding it impossible to get work where I can still care for my dad in the middle of the pandemic, and the result is that my bank account is literally in the negative numbers and we're very much broke.
We still have a hefty house debt to pay that piled on interest from last year, not to mention health expenses, food, gas, water and electric bills, and we have to pay for a ton of paperwork and red tape to get my dad (and myself) aid again.
This situation is very complicated and social security, the general health department, and the IRS, are making us jump through all sorts of complicated hoops and the meanwhile until we can solve all this we have absolutely no income for the next few months.
The local social charity center is helping by buying our medication, attempting to help with electric bills and occasionally providing canned goods but we are absolutely desperate and have nobody to turn to.
Of the only two relatives that could help us, one hates my father for exposing corrupt business practices and dangerous worker conditions in his factory so he refuses to acknowledge us; the other relative wishes he could help but his wife's Alzheimer's got worse and now they have to juggle two maids and a nurse to ensure her well being so they can't really help right now either.
I'm still taking commissions for my fandom rings and willing to write oneshots or draw sketches for any donators who want them but there's been no interest lately.
I tried to summarize the situation as simple as possible but if you want further details, you can ask me on DM.
I hate having to ask for help and I know I've done it before years ago, but the situation was never this dire.
Please, if you can help in anyway, any little bit is appreciated.
TL;DR - government is making my disabled dad and I jump through crazy slow hoops in order to get aid and survive and while we wait for that to happen we have zero income and need all the help we can get to survive.
YOU CAN DONATE TO:
paypal.me/rachcoelho
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ko-fi.com/valkerymillenia
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Updates on the situation:
-My dad got denied temporary disability pension while he recovers.
The only option they are giving him is retirement by disability but he doesn't want that because he should be well enough to work in a few months and because his retirement pension will be fucking tiny due to half of his work years talking place in a foreign country. Plus, the expected time it would take to process that request (and be accessed by a government doctor for it) is several months, at which point he might already be close to well enough to work but won't be able to if they decide to consider him an invalid. Either way the problem is the period between now and then, we have ZERO INCOME.
I'm trying my best, doing incredibly degrading odd jobs that trigger me like hell but it's all I can do to keep us alive. My own medical assessments to get disability aid are still months away too because the pandemic slowed everything down and I'm not considered a priority in the healthcare system.
Please, please, spread the word. We need help in any way we can get.
Update: we have another problem!
Basically, we got stopped by the cops.
Dad didn't have his documents or license because of a mistake we made, his license expired and we were getting the paperwork to renew it but forgot to take it back to the car, plus apparently his license should have been renewed at 60 (he's 65) and we didn't know about that law at all and we're never notified, we just knew about the expiration date on the license, and on top of that his car didn't go to the inspection because we've been too broke for that, so we got a 250€ fine and he has to go court and present his license and find and excuse as to why he didn't renew his license earlier (because after 5 years driving without a valid license is considered a felony and he could arrested).
So we are freaking screwed, 2020 is cursed.
EDIT: We now have a GoFundMe running too.
